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Intro | Points Of View | North | South | Highlands | Midlands | East | West | Conclusion

The Romantic North

Nature's Identities | In Focus: Conrad Atkinson | In Focus: JMW Turner

In Focus: Conrad Atkinson

Conrad Atkinson is a contemporary artist who comes from the area of Cumbria where the nuclear power station at Sellafield is situated and where unemployment is extremely high. People there face a stark choice of being unemployed or working in the nuclear industry which they fear might damage their health. Their appreciation of the beauty of nature is likely to be jaundiced by these facts.

Benjamin Robert Haydon Wordsworth on Helvellyn  1842 Oil on canvas, 1245 x 991 mm © National Portrait Gallery, London

Although William Wordsworth's very name conjures up images of hillside walks and solitary enjoyment of landscape, Atkinson points out that the poet was alive to all aspects of country life, including poverty. In For Wordsworth; For West Cumbria 1980, Atkinson highlights Wordsworth's understanding for the poor by quoting these passages from The Excursion, published in 1814:

Shoals of artisans
From ill-requited labour turned adrift
Sought daily bread from public charity

and:

In disease
He lingered long, and, when his strength returned,
He found the little he had stored, to meet
The hour of accident or crippling age,
Was all consumed

Conrad Atkinson For Wordsworth; for West Cumbria 1980 More info in Tate Collection Photograph, acrylic and mixed media on board, support: 521 x 622 mm © Tate 2005 Purchased 1981

Reading a writer's impressions of an area can enlighten you in a way that looking at a painting by itself might not. In the sixteen panels that make up For Wordsworth; For West Cumbria Atkinson juxtaposes Wordsworth's words with images, encouraging you to consider the way that words and images can complement each other or run against one another's meaning. The images in the upper panels show nature gradually taking over from man.

Beautiful nature can also be a threat to man's survival. In the lower panels, images and words contrast the beauty of the Lake District where wealthy people have second homes and a similar area where people are struggling for decent pay and conditions. For instance, a photo shows a picket line at a thermometer factory with, inset at the foot, the kind of postcard a tourist might buy of Lake Buttermere. Phrases like "second houses, tied cottages, sale of council houses, tourist economy" are written over painted lines that extend the contours of a view of the lakes.